


down, down, down (would the fall never come to an end?)

by rudderless in an ocean of stars (ellieindelibly)



Category: Batwoman (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Introspection, POV Beth Kane, beth-centric, the kane twins are getting a happy ending if i have to write it myself (again), written post-1.06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 15:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21430480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellieindelibly/pseuds/rudderless%20in%20an%20ocean%20of%20stars
Summary: “choose, alice,” screams mouse, but the gun in his hand isn’t giving her much of a choice at all.//the one in which all the masks come off and alice makes a decision
Relationships: Beth Kane & Kate Kane
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	down, down, down (would the fall never come to an end?)

**Author's Note:**

> that’s right, i decided to give beth kane yet another happy ending. this new take on how it could all end is unrelated to my previous story for the kane sisters.
> 
> seeing the weapon from 1.06 practically dissolve that poor man gave me a lot to think about, so here we are yet again. enjoy!

“choose, alice,” screams mouse, but the gun in his hand isn’t giving her much of a choice at all.

its muzzle is pointing right at her sister, her twin, her other half. mouse is half of her too, but not like kate. the half of her that he owns is the dark half, the mangled half, the little girl who cried herself to sleep every night on the cold floor of a cement room in a locked basement. the fifteen years alice has spent by his side are grim and twisted in comparison to the thirteen years beth had spent with kate and the nine months beforehand that they’d spent coming to life together in their mother’s womb.

mouse owns the half of her that is vengeance and chaos personified, the half of her that knows how to peel skin away from flesh and shape it into picture-perfect masks for him to wear. the half of her that is made of rusty nails and rabbit holes and the ache of silent sobs as she listens to the sound of footsteps going up a set of wooden stairs that will leave her alone and undiscovered in her cell. the half of her that knows there is a wild and desperate kind of hunger that goes deeper than being deprived of food; it is the kind of hunger that starts to gnaw on a person’s insides, the kind of hunger that lingers in one’s bones even after being fed.

alice is a bitter creature that has starved in the dark for fifteen years and now she is as hollow and cold and _cruel_ as any beast caught and kept ravenous in an empty cage by a brutal captor.

kate owns the half of her that ate chocolate-covered waffles in the park and played tag in the halls of wayne enterprises. the half of her that would seek refuge in her sister’s room after a nightmare and listen to kate read fairytales aloud with a flashlight under the covers until her tears dried. kate owns the half of her that could sleep through the night in her sister’s arms and believe in things like wishes on shooting stars and neatly written happy endings for little girls and boys who are kind and helpful and _good_ for all the days of their lives.

beth had been an innocent and hopeful girl who wanted to give only sweet and lovely things to the world around her. for that precious naivety, she had paid a miserable price. now beth is more ghost than girl, falling endlessly down a hole that she was shoved into without mercy or hesitation or regret by her captors.

mouse’s finger is inching closer and closer to the trigger, but it’s not there, not quite yet. the sudden, chilling realization that kate has no idea this weapon is capable of killing even a bat in an armored suit makes alice’s heart slow to a crawl inside her chest with quiet serenity, filling her veins with an all too familiar killing calm. she feels the knife leave her fingers before the rest of her brain catches up to her body but when it finally does she thinks, _perhaps there was never another way for this to end_.

he dies in an instant that feels like eternity as she watches his body fold in on itself and crumple to the ground between her and the half of herself that she cannot bear to lose, not for anyone, not even for the other half of herself that is now lying still on the floor with her knife lodged in his brain.

just like that, mouse is dead and alice has crossed the fragile line that kate had drawn in the shifting sands between them on the roof that night, when she’d saved her sister’s life and pretended it was just so that she could call them even.

the words that fall out of her mouth when she regains the ability to speak are this:

“i traded him mr. pandy for it. he wasn’t supposed to have it.” kate stares blankly back at her, and alice shakes herself out of her daze to press on, to say something that might actually make some sense. “the gun is hamilton tech. catherine developed it to be lethally effective against batman. mouse helped me steal it.”

“why?” kate says, and the suit’s voice modulator does little to conceal the heavy undercurrent of emotion lacing her tone.

“i couldn’t let her have it. keep it. maybe even use it. no, i couldn’t _let_ her, not while-“ alice cuts herself off, biting down on her lower lip until the coppery taste of blood fills her mouth. she gestures towards mouse’s body with her now knife-free hand. “and i couldn’t let anybody else use it either.”

kate’s previous words come to life in the back of her head, ringing quietly in her ears.

_if you kill again it’s **over**, and i will stop thinking of you as my sister._

“not even mouse,” she adds lowly, clenching her empty hands into fists at her sides seconds too late to disguise how they shake; kate’s gaze flickers down to see alice’s trembling fingers and the corners of her mouth twist into a frown in response. alice shuts her eyes in a futile attempt to hide her tears as she haltingly forces out the truth that all the rabbit holes in the world couldn’t keep out of the light in the end. “you’re the half of me i can’t live without.”

alice tries not to think of the answer to the question that wraps its hands around her throat and starts to squeeze, sharp nails digging into delicate skin. will kate still want to have any part of a phantom like her, a woman two-thirds of the way into a cold grave long since dug immeasurably deep?

for a moment, alice stands stiffly in place. every breath she sucks in feels less like air and more like the water she should have drowned in all those years ago, where it would have been better for everyone involved if she‘d died alongside her mother in the sinking wreckage of their car. alice is unmoored all of a sudden, a rudderless boat in the sea of inky blackness behind her still-closed eyes. then her knees give out from underneath her, sending her toppling towards the floor like a puppet whose strings have been newly, cleanly severed with a single blow.

it’s over.

it’s _over_.

_it’s over._

distantly, in the final seconds before the last vestiges of her consciousness slip firmly out of reach, alice thinks that the feeling of her body finally hitting the ground isn't quite as hard or as painful as she’d thought it would after all these years of falling.

**Author's Note:**

> is this the end of this particular story? i haven’t decided yet. i may write a small continuation, and if so, it will be posted as a separate oneshot and this work will be the first in the series.
> 
> and yes, i understand that mouse was a victim of his father’s abuse as well bUT he also was a willing participant in the prolonged captivity and abuse of alice/beth, and for that i will neither forgive him for his actions or feel anything other than a general sense of dislike and disdain for his character.
> 
> you can and should assume that kate does and will always love alice/beth. this story focused on alice/beth’s inner thoughts and reactions and insecurities, but you should know that kate absolutely does love her sister, and definitely did catch her before she hit the ground. <3
> 
> anyways, leave a review, send the entire kane family to therapy.
> 
> yell at me on tumblr: @rudderless-in-an-ocean-of-stars or check out my instagram: @lavender.beth where i post kane twins edits :)


End file.
